Table Of ContentTHE
ENGLISH RELIGIOUS
TRADITION
AND THE
G E N I U S
OF
ANGLICANISM
Edited by
GEOFFREY ROWELL
of
Chaplain Keble College, Oxford
With a Foreword by
THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
IKON
375
Copyright 0 Keble College, Oxford 1992
I£ 5:;11
First published in Great Britain by
IKON Productions Ltd
Manor Fann House
Manor Road
WANTAGEOX128NE
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or tnnsmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission oft he copyright holder.
ISBN: 1 871805 01 5 hardback
ISBN: 1 871805 02 3 paperback
Typeset by Oxuniprint, Oxford University Press
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Buder and Tanner Ltd, Frome
CONTENTS
Foreword by the Archbishop of Canterbury 7
GEOFFREY ROWELL Introduction 9
PATRICK WoRMALD The Venerable Bede and the
'Church of the English' 13
SIR RICHARD SOUTHERN Anselm and the English Religious
Tradition 33
SISTER BENEDICATA WARD Lady Julian of Norwich and her
Audience: 'Mine Even-Christian' 47
ANNE HUDSON John Wyclif 65
PATRICK COLLINSON Thomas Cranmer 79
HENRY McADoo Richard Hooker 105
ELIZABETH CLARKE George Herbert's The Temple:
the Genius ofA nglicanism and
the Inspiration for Poetry 127
A. M. ALLCHIN Lancelot Andrewes 145
GORDON W AKEAELD John and Charles Wesley:
A Tale ofTwo Brothers 165
STEPHEN PRICKETT Church and University in tI1e
Life ofJ ohn Keble 195
ADRIAN HASTINGS William Temple 211
STEPHEN SYKES The Genius of Anglicanism 227
GEOFFREY ROWELL John Keble (1792-1866):
A bi-centenary Sermon 243
RICHARD HARRIES A Sermon given in
Commemoration oft he
Founders and Benefactors of
Keble College 251
Index 255
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The quotations from T. S. Eliot, For Lmalot Andrewes: Essays
on Style and Ordn (London, 1928) are reproduced in thls
volume with kind permission of the publishers, Faber and
Faber Ltd.
Foreword
by
THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
IN SPRING of 1992, a series ofl ectures was held in the Chapel of
THE
Keble College, Oxford, to celebrate the bi-centenary of the birth of
John Keble, poet, priest and pastor.
This book is a record of those lectures. Twelve distinguished
scholars present the English religious tradition as it has come down
to us through the centuries from pre-Refonnation times, and the
genius of Anglicanism as reflected in the lives of those writers and
teachers who served and helped to shape it. In its character and
wisdom, the English religious tradition displays an underlying
consistency. As an expression of the continuity inherent in English
spiritual life, it is an appropriate tribute to John Keble, since his
ministry was distinctively Anglican in its loyalty to the English
Church and its traditions.
This set ofl ectures directs us to the foundations oft hat loyalty.
As the Visitor of Keble College, I am glad that they were first
presented in the College dedicated to his memory, and I am
delighted that, through this publication, they are now available to a
wider audience.
(7)
GEOFFREY ROWELL
Introduction
ON 27 SEPTEMBER 1836,John Keble preached a notable sennon in
Winchester Cathedral on 'Primitive Tradition'. Less well known
than his Assize Sermon of 14 July 1833 on 'National Apostasy', it is
an exposition ofo ne of the major theological themes oft he Oxford
Movement. The constitutional changes of the late 1820s and early
1830s raised important questions ofi dentity for the Church ofE ng
land. When Newman asked in the flI'St of the Tracts for the Times,
'On what ground do you stand, 0 presbyter of the Church· of
England?', he answered with reference to the sacramental continu
ity of the historic ministry of the Church expressed by the doctrine
of apostolic succession. No less a concern was the living continuity
off aith and practice represented by the theme ofa postolic tradition.
Against rationalist re-interpretation, and the private judgement of
an individualist Evangelicalism, Keble, Newman, Pusey and the
other leaders of the Oxford Movement re-asserted the corporate
nature of Christian faith, the normative character of the creeds
which embodied the faith of the early Church, and the devotional
and sacramental pattern which was an essential element in creating
and maintaining Christian identity and continuity. They empha
sized that the Christian faith was at one and the same time a revela
tion and a mystery - a revelation to be received and a mystery to
be lived out. The notes of awe, wonder, reverence and reserve,
were essential characteristics of Christian believing. As Newman
put it, 'Christians receive the gospel literally on their knees, and in
a temper altogether different from that critical and argumentative
(9)
INTRODUCTION
spirit which sitting and listening engender'. 1 For Keble 'in the sub
stance of faith there is no such thing as improvement, discovery,
evolution of new truths; none of those processes, which are the
pride of human reason and knowledge'. Theology, he believed, was
not 'like any human science', a subject in which every succeeding
age might be expected to advance on the former'.2 He protested
against 'the nominalism' of the day, 'the habit of resolving the high
mysteries off aith into mere circumstances oflanguages, methods of
speaking adapted to our weak understanding, but with no real
counterpart in the nature ofthings'.3
The words and doctrines of the Christian tradition were, as
Coleridge might have put it, 'the living educts of the Christian
imagination'. As such they were to be received reverently. They
were matter for prayer before they were matter for investigation.
Part of the concerns of Newman and Keble were framed by
their knowledge of the Fathers, and their endeavour to guard and
express the apostolic faith that had been handed on to them. For
Keble in particular this patristic inheritance came through the more
immediate tradition of Richard Hooker and the seventeenth-cen
tury Anglican divines, men such as Lancelot Andrewes, Henry
Hammond, and Herbert Thorndike. It was his family tradition, and
one which he believed embodied the genius of Anglicanism,
though the phrase would have been alien to him. It was character
istic oft he Oxford Movement that it was a 'revolution by tradition'.
When Newman dedicated the Lectures on the Prophetical Office oft he
Church to the venerable President of Magdalen, Martin Routh, it
was with the epigraph that he had 'been reserved to report to a for
getful generation what was the theology of their fathers'. Anglican
identity was to be discovered by a return to roots.
It was such characteristic emphases in the thought of John
Keble and the other leaders of the Oxford Movement which made
it appropriate to plan a series ofl ectures on 'The English Religious
Tradition and the Genius ofA nglicanism' to mark the bi-centenary
oft he birth ofjohn Keble. Eleven scholars were invited to speak on
significant figures in the history of the Church in England; a
twelfth, Stephen Sykes, the Bishop of Ely, who has written much
on the identity ofA nglicanism and on some oft he contemporary is
sues facing the Anglican Communion, was invited to reflect on the
'genius of Anglicanism' in the final lecture. The lecture series drew
a large audience to Keble College Chapel over a term and a half, and
it is good that lectures of such high quality now have a permanent
form.
[10]
INTRODUCTION
The first four lectures were devoted to the pre-Reformation
church and one oft he interesting features of these lectures is that it
has been possible to identify in these early figures characteristics of
the Anglican ethos. With only twelve lectures the choice ofs ignifi
cant figures across the centuries was not always easy, but since a se
lection had to be made the choice was, it is hoped, both judicious,
and appropriate to the one whose bi-centenary of birth it was.
Keble himself was a poet, and it is notable that so many of those
studied in these lectures were significant not only for their religious
insight but also for their stature as writers.
In addition to the twelve lectures collection includes two
thi~
sermons preached at Fairford and at Keble College Chapel during
the anniversary weekend. In their different ways they try to draw
out something ofKeble's continuing importance for Christians. He
himselfw rote the lines inscribed on the memorial tablet in Fairford
Church - 'so glorious let thy pastors shine, that by their speaking
lives the world may learn'. His was indeed a speaking life. Like
Teresa ofA vila, Keble knew that humility is endless. The 'condition
of complete simplicity' costs 'not less than everything'. 'Purity of
heart' is indeed, as Kierkegaard reminded us, 'to will one thing'.
Bless'd arc the pure in heart,
For they shall sec our God,
The secret of the Lord is theirs,
Their soul is Christ's abode.
NOTES
1 T. Cornall, ed., Ltttm and Diana ofj ohn Hmry Ntwman V, (Oxford,
~
t 981 }, p. 46. (Newman to Sir James Stephen, t 6 March 1835.
2 J. Keble, 'Primitive Tradition' in E. R. Fairweather, ed., The Oxford Move
mmt (Oxford and New Yorlc, 1964), p. 86.
'b'd
J l l .
[111
PATRICK WORMALD
The Venerable Bede and the
'Church of the English'
IT that Bede should have a place in a book on 'The
IS APPROPRIATE
English Religious Tradition and the Genius ofA nglicanism'.1 But I
do not intend to argue that Bede was a prototype of Anglican
churchmanship. I shall begin by trying to show that the part he
has undeniably played in the historical image of insular protest
against Rome is ironic and by him entirely unintended. I will
go on to argue that, in founding the history of the Church of the
English, indeed of the English themselves, he did make a central (if
again unintended) contribution to the eventual emergence of a
of
Church England. Those who created the Church ofE ngland were
very far from unaware of the inspiration they could draw from
·
Be~.
The Church ofE ngland was not the only one to seek its char
ter in the earlier history ofi ts nation's Christianity. From the days of
George Buchanan, supplying initial historical propaganda for the
makers of the Scottish kirk, until a startlingly recent date, there was
warrant for an anti-Roman, anti-episcopal and, in the nineteenth
century, anti-Establishment stance in the Columban or 'Celtic'
Church. Here is the peroration of a respectably learned book
reprinted in 1957: 'When the Columban Church itselfp assed away,
(independence) was the legacy that the Church of Columba be
queathed to the Church which was to be built at the Reformation
upon the ruins of the Church of Rome, and which has been com
pleted in the Church ofS cotland - the most independent national
Church in Christendom' .2 The idea that there was a 'Celtic Church'
(13]
